#BUDDY CIANCI TRIAL#
#BUDDY CIANCI SERIES#

So, how does a guy manage to poll in the high 30s in a three-way race for the job he previously used to commit a felony or two?įirst, Cianci is a man of prodigious political gifts.

#BUDDY CIANCI SERIES#

Or when former Providence mayor and Cianci foe-turned-BFF Joe Paolino told Boston Magazine, “He’s got cancer in the rectum! So nobody’s been more vetted than that.” Or when the Providence Journal ran a seemingly never-ending series of anti-Cianci editorials (“Lying for Votes,” “Endorsing Corruption,” “Pay-to-Play Police,” “Cianci’s Half-Truths”), including one that simply presented excerpts from Cianci’s 2011 memoir, 'Politics and Pasta.' (Example: “I admit that I used jobs as currency to get the support I needed, I admit that I used campaign money for everything from a personal helicopter to get around the state to paying for dinners, and on occasion I even used my influence to do favors for people.”) Or when a longtime Cianci opponent was arrested for allegedly assaulting a female Cianci supporter at a recent mayoral forum. Dan Harrop, who is polling at 2.8 percent, made a $1,000 donation to his Democratic opponent, Elorza. Or when Cianci’s Republican opponent, Dr. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, held a press conference to tell everyone how bad of an idea it would be to elect Cianci. Attorneys, including former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Almond and current U.S. That may have come when three former U.S.

President Obama’s endorsement of Cianci’s opponent this week has hardly been the most notable moment since then. The buzz reached a crescendo on-air on the day of the candidacy filing deadline, when, as the minutes ticked down and Cianci took adoring call after adoring call urging him to run, he finally said, “Today with a sense of humility, contrition, and confidence, I announce to you my candidacy for mayor of Providence.” The show’s theme music was a big-band arrangement of the old show tune “Rhode Island Is Famous for You.” For months Cianci had stoked speculation about whether or not he’d run for his old job, with incumbent Democrat Angel Taveras officially running for governor. ''The first is a skilled and charismatic political figure, probably one of the most talented politicians Rhode Island has ever seen.'' The other, he said, “'presided over an administration that is rife with corruption at all levels.” Cianci spent the next four and a half years at Federal Correctional Institution Fort Dix, in New Jersey.įast-forward to June 2014, when a leaner, grayer, balder, post-prison, post-cancer Cianci was earning six figures as the afternoon drive-time host of “The Buddy Cianci Show,” on News Talk 630 WPRO AM, in East Providence. “There appear to be two very different Buddy Ciancis,” he said. In a now-famous courtroom speech at the sentencing, Judge Ernest Torres compared Cianci to Dr.

#BUDDY CIANCI TRIAL#

District Court of a single count of federal racketeering (RICO) conspiracy, a crime the judge described as running City Hall as “a criminal enterprise.” The enduring image from the trial came from grainy, secret-camera tape showing Cianci’s director of administration accepting an envelope filled with cash and placing it in a drawer in his desk. I saw a lunatic.' Cianci pleaded no contest to assault charges, received a five-year suspended sentence, and stepped down from City Hall, as members of his staff wept.Ĭianci resigned again in 2002 (he was re-elected in 1990 and won every election in the interim), after he was convicted in U.S. Ray DeLeo, the man who received a barrage of smacks, punches, spittle, death threats, airborne ashtrays and attempts to snuff a lit cigarette in his eye, once said of that incident, 'I saw a crazed man. He left once in 1984 following a conviction for attacking a man he suspected of having an affair with his estranged wife. The short answer is, according to a press release, the commander-in-chief says 37-year-old Democrat, former housing court judge, and Roger Williams University law professor Jorge Elorza “will bring honest leadership to Providence and fight to grow the local economy, improve public safety, expand affordable education, and create a transparent and friendly government and business climate to spur innovation and entrepreneurship.”īut the real reason likely has more to do with Elorza’s opponent: the former prosecutor, talk radio host, marinara sauce salesman, two-time ex-con and longest-serving mayor in Providence history, Independent Vincent Albert “Buddy” Cianci.Ĭianci has never lost a Providence mayor’s race, though he has stepped down from office. Why did President Barack Obama endorse a candidate in the Providence, Rhode Island (pop.

Buddy cianci